Drow was overpowered when she had the global aura, but now she is back the way she was with more damage. She is still probably the easiest hero to gank in the entire game and she just doesn't fare well since the meta is not 4 protect 1. She will get wrecked in a competitive game of any degree.

Just finishing my thoughts on the matter. But to respond to you directly, what does any other carry bring to the table? AM has auto attacks and mobility, considered a top pick. PL extremely susceptible to AoE, considered a top pick. Sure, these two heroes can escape a gank better, but why let Drow be ganked in the first place? She will outfarm both of them in the jungle.

@Poppasan
I'll have to restate my position on balancing a game played by millions around matches played by 50 - let's not do it. 80% win rate by the 99% and 5% winrate by the 1% does not make for a fun hero. I also highly doubt she would not keep an even winrate in tourneys if people started playing their team around her.

She has 4 allies, too, and they can easily afford to sit in the river and protect her while she farms and your team wastes all of its time trying to gank.

Okay new PRO start? 4 allies protecting Drow Ranger? Don't be hilarious. What you write is wasting all team resource over protecting drow by the time she got her items you would lose raxes in two lanes. Not to mention a free farmed void can kill her in 1 Chronosphere time.

Originally Posted by Lysah

If you've never tried to gank drow just to eat silence and be 4 shotted, I don't know what to tell you

What? 4 shots? That's not possible unless heroes are ganking naked. You are exaggerating her damage. It's strong but not that strong. I play against Drow every other game and I've never seen her 4 shotting people without items.

Your entire strategy depends on support of drow making the opener, drow is picking kills up but that's not possible in practice. If you counter ward all the time, you will be harrassing her farm effectively. Or you could just ignore her and push the lanes while she's farming and her team mates are wasting their time with protecting her. Until she makes her way to pro scene(need more observation), I will just consider her not OP because of her drawbacks.

@Lysah I am sorry but I do not think I understand. What I do grasp from what you said is that balancing should be done based on the public games instead of the pro games. Is this correct? I am very sorry since English isn't my first language.

Okay new PRO start? 4 allies protecting Drow Ranger? Don't be hilarious. What you write is wasting all team resource over protecting drow by the time she got her items you would lose raxes in two lanes. Not to mention a free farmed void can kill anybody in 1 Chronosphere time.

Using arguments that apply to any hero doesn't really convince me.

@Poppasan
Both, ideally. If that isn't possible then yes, I would prefer they balance heroes around the actual game and not the esports scene. DotA should not be a game you download just so you can watch replays. Lastly, many heroes who are balanced around pubs (ursa) are rarely, if ever, picked in tourneys at all, despite how good they are (or not).

.
@Poppasan
I'll have to restate my position on balancing a game played by millions around matches played by 50 - let's not do it. 80% win rate by the 99% and 5% winrate by the 1% does not make for a fun hero. I also highly doubt she would not keep an even winrate in tourneys if people started playing their team around her.

I just realized that I have like 12 games and one loss on Drow. But as I stated before, there are several carrys that wreck her completly even when she is fully farmed. Do you have a good farmed carry all you need is one stun on her and she will drop instantly. She is a good pubhero only cause teams often suck at working together.

Originally Posted by Poppasan

Icefrog has stated that balance around the actual game will never happen.

I agree, but when a hero has a huge winrate by the majority of players I feel someone should look into it. Trying to say "those are just pub games they don't matter" is the exact same attitude that gets any other game in trouble. How much fun is WoW PvP, which is balanced around arena and BGs be damned? Vast majority of people DON'T participate, as opposed to those who do. Are we going to say that, because we're so elitist about the esports, that DotA2 should stay at 100k players forever? If a hero like Drow is an auto-win in low skill games, it doesn't matter how bad she is in pro games, average players will quit the game because in THEIR queue the team that clicks Drow faster wins, and that is not fun. It's a game, not a sport. At least, that's how it should be. I realize the entire world revolves around making money first and having fun second.

As far as heroes who stop Drow, of course there are many. The problem isn't that she's uncounterable, the problem is that the heroes that stop her either aren't in the game or aren't ever used. SB is great for the job, he can get next to her (cancelling half her ult) and then bash her to death, his ult will also do half of her HP since she's a low health ranged carry. SB also has a high win rate, but when was the last time you saw him in a game? I seen him 1/50, MAYBE. Invis heroes are great for the job (they can stop her from jungling, too) but they're easily stopped with true sight. I'd argue for a hero like Wolf, but his strength isn't in being a strong hero, it's getting farm quickly from the jungle. Late game a hero like sniper can easily stand toe to toe with him and win (lolpermastun).

We run into the problem where Drow is simply going to farm, you cannot be on top of her 100% of the time. Even with just buriza she does so much damage when she has her full ult up. If she can bring a TH and tag your team with even 2 seconds of stun someone's dead, every time. A counter pick like Wolf might work really well in a 1v1 situation, but give her a hero like VS who can stop him for two seconds and, even better, has a -armor +damage and position swap kit, and he falls over too. You bring a sand king to help wolf and Drow brings Enigma. We get to the point where almost all of Drow's counters are melee, which is already a disadvantage because in a 5v5 lineup her range allows her to do damage before the enemy carry even gets in range, logically, and she has a lot of it.

My favorite moments are ganking feeder Drow top who is 0-4 and only has treads and branches, just for her to get shallow grave and kill two people in those few seconds.

No hero needs to 100% completely balanced, and the game can still be balanced, that's the glory of it. As it's a 5v5, hero balance doesn't matter, as much as player synergy with each other, and hero synergy with each other.

Also, I feel like Drow would get crushed by Axe mid-game. A well timed blink, taunt, and Blade Mail would have her killing herself in seconds, Culling Blade possibly not even needed.

Correct me if I am wrong but as far as I know DotA is balanced around competitive scene for years and seems like it's going pretty strong to me. Also, the Idea of balancing heroes for players who have no idea what that particular hero capable of is the worst idea ever.

I think a game should never, ever be balanced around the average player
The average player is completely awful. I dont know how long its been for you guys since you played an average skill level pub but I dont think balancing heroes for a demographic that starts boots tango on mid Clinkz would work.
The vast majority of players play at a level where skill is so over the place that in order to make heroes balanced there they would all have to be the same because a simple mechanic like "dont move when BS uses rupture" is already too complicated for them
If we went down that path we would eventually make the game into LoL where half the heroes have the same mechanics because everything other than gapcloser, nuke, stun, shield, steroid is too complicated
There are limits of course, >60% winrate is probably too high, which is why Drow no longer has her global push aura, which puts her at 56% winrate now.

It's a balance. I do think drow is a bit overpowered to be honest, she farms up to easily. This may not be the case in the pro games and that's fine but that doesn't mean lower levels of play should all but be ignored. If you want a game where everything is balanced around the pro level go play starcraft 2. It didn't help that games community none and it won't help dota 2. Having said that we should also take into account what happens at the pro levels as well. It's a balance between the two really.

If you want a game where everything is balanced around the pro level go play starcraft 2. It didn't help that games community none and it won't help dota 2.

If you're implying that this is the reason SC2 is dying I have to disagree. SC2 is dying because of awful custom map support, the balance has nothing to do with. BW was already balanced about the pro scene and it was massively popular.
I agree with your general idea, there has to be some kind of balance even at low levels, which is why Drow no longer has her global push aura. Now she's sitting at 56% winrate, which is completely fine in my opinion.
I just think that if we nerf every hero that forces you to play in a specific way if he's on the enemy team, or heroes that are really strong in some aspect we end up with a bunch of very similar heroes. If we took away drows free stats and aura for example, she'd be just another sniper just instead of a single target stun lock and long range nuke she'd have an AoE silence and inbuilt skadi
By that logic we should probably take away AMs mana burn because he is way too good against STR/AGI heroes that use abilities. Or we should nerf Pudge because its total BS that he can 100-0 almost everyone early on by just hitting 1 hook

If you're implying that this is the reason SC2 is dying I have to disagree. SC2 is dying because of awful custom map support, the balance has nothing to do with. BW was already balanced about the pro scene and it was massively popular.
I agree with your general idea, there has to be some kind of balance even at low levels, which is why Drow no longer has her global push aura. Now she's sitting at 56% winrate, which is completely fine in my opinion.
I just think that if we nerf every hero that forces you to play in a specific way if he's on the enemy team, or heroes that are really strong in some aspect we end up with a bunch of very similar heroes. If we took away drows free stats and aura for example, she'd be just another sniper just instead of a single target stun lock and long range nuke she'd have an AoE silence and inbuilt skadi
By that logic we should probably take away AMs mana burn because he is way too good against STR/AGI heroes that use abilities. Or we should nerf Pudge because its total BS that he can 100-0 almost everyone early on by just hitting 1 hook

The balance is a part of the mentality that exists in the game and in the development team. To much emphasis on league and competitive play. Balance is a reflection of this as anything to "strong" is immediately nerfed into the ground. Sc2 is all about cut throat competition and if you can't step up well toodles. If you exploit anything remotely powerful to assists you well expect a nerf. Poor custom map support is also reflective of this. Anything that isn't ladder or league play is a back seat.
As an experiment with Drow I ended up picking her after reading this thread. I was mid and about 5 minutes in I was already 0-5. By the end of the match I was 22-10. A couple of things that I noticed. Her ultimate is a bit to good at killing creeps. Her slow is a bit to good at slowing. And she has just a tad to much range. It's not that shes insanely broken it's just that shes a little bit to effective.

The balance is a part of the mentality that exists in the game and in the development team. To much emphasis on league and competitive play. Balance is a reflection of this as anything to "strong" is immediately nerfed into the ground. Sc2 is all about cut throat competition and if you can't step up well toodles. If you exploit anything remotely powerful to assists you well expect a nerf. Poor custom map support is also reflective of this. Anything that isn't ladder or league play is a back seat.

I never really followed SC2 after release so I cant comment in depth, but that is essentially how I felt about the game. They pushed the competitive aspect too much while providing nothing for the casual player.
That said I dont see Dota having this problem. The game is pretty casual to begin with, and knowing Valve it will probably have a good mod scene.

Originally Posted by TonyIommi

As an experiment with Drow I ended up picking her after reading this thread. I was mid and about 5 minutes in I was already 0-5. By the end of the match I was 22-10. A couple of things that I noticed. Her ultimate is a bit to good at killing creeps. Her slow is a bit to good at slowing. And she has just a tad to much range. It's not that shes insanely broken it's just that shes a little bit to effective.

Match ID? Without seeing the game I can only say one thing: they probably didnt have anyone that could just blink on top of Drow and murder her in 2 seconds, because thats the standard way of dealing with her. TA, SB and Cent are all good at that, just off the top of my head.
She is probably the best hard carry to play in Pubs because those game are usually over at the 20 minute mark, before real hard carries even take off. She just needs levels to carry and can even gank with frost arrows.

Its a handy feature to have, and I reckon it should only be avaliable if all 5 players agree, because DOTA is a game where you can comeback from a 20-50 game if you play well enough.

Btw guys what do you think of arcane boots as early game boots for Sven? (in pubs) I get alot of hate for it but I really find it so useful, Svens mana is appauling, being able to spam stun wins my lanes so easily. And im not in dire need of the bonus damage from other boots that early when I have my ultimate anyway.

Only time I've ever wanted to forfeit is when I'm solo queued and end up against a 5 man stack of tryhards. Game's not even fun then, and most of the time they're too busy trying to get their perfect full inventory to actually push rax. Those are pretty much the games I invariably bail out of if it becomes apparent my teammates (lich that doesn't buy chicken, doesn't buy wards, doesn't stack/pull for his lanemate, whines about our solo bot dying to an aggressive trilane he wasn't expecting, then feeds 3 deaths when he KNOWS there are four heroes top and they will just dive the tower when he TP's back in) aren't going to be good enough to pull it off. Anti-fun games like that kill my interest in Dota for the next few days, anyway, so the low priority isn't even a punishment.

As far as Sven, I really like Soul Ring on him. Lets you spam the crap out of his stun. Crazy 325 damage in a large AOE is as useful for wiping out creep waves as it is for wiping out heroes.

Originally Posted by Lysah

My favorite moments are ganking feeder Drow top who is 0-4 and only has treads and branches, just for her to get shallow grave and kill two people in those few seconds.

That's why I think Drow is silly right now. It's not really that you can't kill her, it's that if she has even a couple seconds of breathing room, she's going to gib someone on your team. Oh, got hit by Fireblast/Storm Hammer/Magic Missile/Burrowstrike/any stun? Grats, Drow just killed you before the stun ended. She also farms creeps/jungle extremely fast once she hits 6, fast enough that I think it's highly unlikely most other carries can keep up with her. Like Lysah said, you can gank her, but then you're pulling a lot of your teammates out of lanes (XP/gold) to gank her, and even if you successfully gank her, she's just going to explode the second you're forced to back off and defend towers or whatever.

Her aura is still really good, too. Once she hits level 7 and has maxed aura (assuming 1-1-4 build, which I think is standard now), that's about +20-24 damage to ranged allies just for being alive. That can't really be underestimated, especially if you have aggressive supports like WR or SD.

I also do landscaping on weekends with some mexican kid that I "hired". He's real good because he's 100% obedient to me and does everything I say while never complaining. He knows that I am the man in the relationship and is completely submissive towards me as he should be.

I never really followed SC2 after release so I cant comment in depth, but that is essentially how I felt about the game. They pushed the competitive aspect too much while providing nothing for the casual player.

I'd say the decline of SC2 in popularity is simply because of the difficulty and the focus on the 1v1 format combined
with no real rewards for playing ladder.

It's extremely high effort + low to no rewards.

If they would want to make the game more popular they would need cosmetic unlockables and stuff. I personally don't
care about that kind of stuff but there is no real point in laddering SC2 than getting better at the game.

In terms of balance, I think SC2 has done an amazing job.

And about Drow. Shes a great pub stompper. Just get fast Helm of dominator + treads, mind control an alpha wolf, use it to
stack ancients while you farm a lane [or jungle if the lane is too dangerous] and it's super easy 500 GPM very early
on in the game.

I wouldn't mind seeing the ulti get changed completely. The earlier %chance to instantly kill creeps was super lame in Dota 1
but I dislike passive stat bonuses even more. I don't really see her as OP hero as it's pretty easy to shup her down with agressive
warding / ganking, but changing her ulti and / or the aura to some defensiveISH active skill would make her more interesting hero
and would greatly reduce her effectiveness in lower level play.

Right know shes just very powerful and very easy to play at lower level.